Life of My Light
by Blue1
Summary: Hm, this fic is something myself and a web friend contemplated some time ago before the whole Pylea arc happened the way it did. We were just having fun with some ideas and speculating. You want to know more? Well, I will tell you that it starts out wi
1. Default Chapter

Life of My Light 

Life of My Light   


by: blue 

rated: pg, so far

  
  
  
  
  


Author's Note: I hope to make this story into a long series. It's sort of like a summer project and hopefully I'll have the last part written and completed before the new season premieres. Hm, this fic is something myself and a web friend contemplated some time ago before the whole Pylea arc happened the way it did. We were just having fun with some ideas and speculating. You want to know more? Well, you'll just have to wait and _read_. :) The lyrics may seem out of place but let me know if so. I'm all about revisions.

Disclaimer: The Darla and Angel characters belong to Joss Whedon, the Kuzuis and FOX. No copyright infringement is intended. The following lyrics are from the "Drops of Jupiter" album performed by Train and "Hey Pretty" from the "Haunted" album by Poe.

Distribution: Just ask me. Send me an e-mail.

Summary: Darla thinks and thinks and eventually takes that big step.

Spoilers: The Darla arc in season 2 of ANGEL, especially in regards to _Epiphany._ No! Not like that, lol. :)

Category: Angst, Inner Reflection and Analysis

Dedication: This is for the Darla lovers out there or anyone that _respects_ the character and her long history.

Thanks to: You know who you are.

Feedback: Love it. Bring it on.   
  


"Hey, pretty. Don't you want to take a ride with me to my world?"

  
  
  


The sun is calling me down that long stretch of hallway . . . it's calling my name. 

Calling me by my real name that I've conveniently forgotten over the years . . . until now. 

No . . . 

No, it's calling her by that name. 

I've lived a total of five lives, like a cat minus the other four. At least I can say that for now, anyway. Maybe I should name my first bodily existence on this earth "Da" then the second "Dar", the third "Darl" and the fourth, which was the so called new and improved, "Darla". 

But it'd probably make more sense to start in the opposite direction. _Darla_ began to fall apart at the seams since she began and ended up with no letters to her name. 

How fitting and convenient (laughs to herself just a little) but what do I call myself now? 

I need a shower to wash off all this stuff I can't name. The problem is that in order to take one I'd either have to sneak my way into a fresh and clean one (which probably means a sure ticket to some carnage and I really don't trust myself), or stand under that ever flowing and probably contaminated water "shower" I see in the corner of this "room," if you could call it that. 

Well, I am a vampire now so does it matter? Why should it? 

If you are wondering why in the world I'm saying all of this then you are not alone. I don't know what in the world I'm doing here or what I'm saying. My mind is lost and wanders ever so often, but it's still mine isn't it? And for some awfully strange reason that's a comforting feeling. 

There goes that little mouse again taking his daily trip into the hallway. I guess the sun calls its name as well. I don't know why I haven't killed it yet. In fact spilled mouse blood sounds like a treat right now but . . . I don't want to do that. 

The last thing I need is another reminder of my past . . . and him. No, it's _her_ past and him. I'm not her anymore either. 

It's either new and improved or just nothing . . . and I have to choose. 

Yes, I have to. 

I have nothing left but myself. No power, no love, and no energy to do what most highly regarded vampires usually love to do: play games. I'm a Darla without a true face or even a mask. There was never a Darla like I am now or are turning out to be. 

I'm currently Darla version number five (I guess that's the right number), yet ironically I don't think her name is Darla or any configuration of that name anymore. I mean after all, there is only so far you can go after using the last letter in the name _Darla_. 

What's in a name? What's in a new name for someone that's been reborn four and nearly five times and still counting? 

I sit up but then . . . lay back down again staring at the sun's dancing life before me. 

I remember the peaceful sunshine and how some of my former selves hated it, but for some reason while looking at it from a distance it had become a distant friend, but even more so like a distant relative. She's someone that's been with me and in my blood all of these years, and whenever she wants decides to haunt me with her presence. She's been doing this ever since I took up shop here calling my name, wanting me to dance with her again. She beckons me with feelings that are distinctly familiar yet soothing. 

Day in and day out I'm literally hypnotized by her or thoughts of her. 

Will I burn up alive and fade into ash if we dance? 

I don't know who or what to trust anymore. 

I guess that's because she's trying to remind me of who and what I used to be, how I used to be, yes . . . 

a little girl that loved the sun.   
  


with drops of jupiter in her hair   
she acts like summer and walks like rain   
reminds me that there's time to change   
since the return from her stay on the moon   
she listens like spring and she talks like june

tell me did you sail across the sun   
did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded   
and that heaven is overrated   
tell me, did you fall for a shooting star   
one without a permanent scar   
and did you miss me while you were looking at yourself out there

  
  


That's all I ever did was dance in the sun again and again and again. 

But when my life turned on me at such a young age, I turned away from life, the sun, and in turn the moon's darkness embraced and welcomed me. I never knew the moon, but I was willing to give it a try since maybe there in his world there would be no more betrayal, no more taking advantage of, and yes, I could start anew. 

I meant she could start anew . . . as a newly created and personified image named Darla. 

(Darla takes a long pause.)   
  
  
  
  
  


I don't really remember much about _whoever her name_ was. My conscience tries to respect her memory by forcing me to remember these memories of her life with very close friends, family, and yes, again, the sun. I guess they all loved her. Faintly, I can feel her moving through the air in those nice beautiful long dresses, laughing, playing little games with her friends, and all along feeling that ever-consuming feeling of sunshine prickling her skin. 

But I'm not her. I'm just not, at least not anymore. 

I need to work on version number five here and move towards something different. 

Blood bottles smelling of a combination of blood and booze litter the floor. Yeah, I guess you can still say I'm working on acquiring that ultimate and glorious high. I don't kill people anymore because, well, that requires interaction of the most boring kind. 

(yawns and laughs a little to herself) 

Hmmm, have I in turn created a substitute? 

Blood and alcohol traded in for the sun's addicting love? Maybe that sun has more of an effect on me than I thought. 

The blood-alcohol concoction gives me a heady rush indeed and makes me feel so powerful and real that I could do just about anything. I could be self-content, and still make it through another full day of contemplation without thinking about the past or him. 

aka "Drowning my Sorrows" 

I swear I must be cracking myself up in more ways than one. 

I'm never in the sunlight's reach now, but I watch it dance before me nonstop for hours everyday in that long hallway. I don't want to _pass_ just yet mind you. My time is still precious, I think. I watch her flicker from a distance and from time to time I hear her calling me by that name again and again. Funny, sometimes it uses Angel's voice, beckoning me to: 

"Just try a little harder Darla." 

"I believe in you." 

"Dance with me, Darla." 

Did he really say those things? Or maybe I just wish he did. I've lived so many lives that I can't even tell my past from my past. 

Angel's my fire. 

Even now he burns and consumes me like fire. I don't think I need to explain why. 

That's pretty self-explanatory. 

(Darla winks.) 

And even though he's so far away right now I can still feel his flickers of flames dancing on my skin, especially now. After that night and for every night thereafter, I place his ring on the counter top and stare at it when the sun in down. 

Yes, sunlight and flames go hand in hand, something I desperately want to forget, I think. 

Yet the sun has a strange way of reminding me of what I want in life. 

But right now, for a short moment, I'm seriously contemplating ending it all at that altar of fire and sun, him and my past rolling into one again and again and again bursting into flames and ash. 

It'll be like Hell. 

(a little laugh) 

"Dance with me, Darla." 

And yes, in a strange way all of these thoughts of mine (yes, they are mine) are eerily some kind of wonderful. 

Maybe the sun won't hurt me and burn me up alive. Angel did it once . . . literally. Will the sun do it to me also? 

Then again I can't help but think I'm hallucinating all of this, that I'm losing my mind as I lay here in this abandoned building shut off from the world and what Angel loves by choice and not. I spend my entire days like this. Everyday I get up at around sunrise and from a distance watch the sunlight rise ever so slowly up the windowless windowpanes that illuminate the ever-stretching hallway far ahead of me. All day I lie across this ratty couch, and just stare out at the light flickering and dancing on the decaying walls and floors like we used to dance together. 

Like Angel used to dance with me. 

Oh, that day. 

I prefer not to think of it, yet at the same time I can't stop thinking about it. How can I? I've been shaped by the being that spent most of her time thinking and distressing over "flame" boy, and I'm not the strong vamp I was before. And as a human the second time around, I'm left with the constant reminder of that gullible and tragic girl not so long ago. 

I'm irrevocably changed not for better or for worse. No, not really. 

I'm just here, don't know why, with so many questions about myself, my situations, lives, etcetera and on and on and on. 

Yes, everyday I lay upon this couch and like I said before, I contemplate the true death, the one that would put an end to any more Darlas or whoever she was. Please let there also be no more flames that like to lick yet not stay, and no more dancing suns. 

Yet, I can't take my eyes away from those dancing images in front of me or my past . . . or him. 

I should just suck it all up and get on with my so very _interesting_ life. 

Yeah, that's the plan, at least for today that is. 

Tomorrow is just a question mark as it always is. 

Who knows what it holds for me? 

Would you believe me if I told you she was named after the sun? Her true name was Noor—ironically meaning "God's Light" in some foreign language I can barely remember; yet her friends and family called her Nora since it was more _Anglo_ sounding.   
  


tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet   
did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day   
and head back to the milky way   
and tell me, did venus blow your mind   
was it everything you wanted to find   
and did you miss me while you were looking at yourself out there

  
  


Yeah, sure, sun . . . I'll give you another try. 

I'll trust you one more time. 

I get up slowly yet I hesitate at first, and then walk and walk and walk . . . 

I'm almost there at the first sunbeam. I can feel its heat radiating on to me and my skin tingles with fear and curiosity. 

But before I touch it, I put on Angel's ring for some inexplicable reason and just when I'm practically bathed in sunlight, yearning for more and brimming with silent excitement, the door to my humble "abode" surprisingly opens and it is the one and only Lindsey McDonald.   



	2. Life of My Light--part 2

Hyperion

Part 2  Hyperion 

_~3:00 pm in sunny yet cool LA~_

It's quiet in the Hyperion, a sound not really a sound but very familiar and becoming to the old hotel.In the main area from morning till now three tall men stood, sat, walked back and forth, and silently regarded each other or at times the walls and columns of the Hyperion.

And, in those moments when either of the three men silently contemplated the Hyperion, the Hyperion itself would react back in no physical way or form.It watched the crew go on its seemingly exciting missions time and time again and awaited the days when those times would change.Hm, maybe that moment was now.They provided great entertainment indeed with their fights both physical and verbal, and no one was more interesting than the lead vampire that stood among them.

Now _he_ was someone of color and never a boring shade of blue.

Unlike the crew the Hyperion had no emotional lifestyle, so it lived either through silence or others, unless you counted that time ago when its walls were haunted by a paranoia-sucking demon.Ah, yes, that fellow, well, same vampire over there knows of that affair.Ah, but those times are gone now and so is that endless yet seemingly comforting chatter . . .

Oh well, silence is my life and I will stand here until . . .

_Angel: "For once the silence (quiet) is killing me."_

Death befalls me.

Angel rubs his brow and as if searching for an answer looks up and sees the dancing sunbeams on the Hyperion walls.For once he doesn't feel burdened, he's free and also hypnotized.

_The beauty of the sun . . ._

"Wesley, we have to do something," slowly coming out of his trance.

_is calling me._

_Yes, it's been silent for too long._

"I know Angel," Wesley says firmly without the used-to-be-there stammering, yet ironically his hands were doing a "stammering" of their own, flipping through various books of different shapes and sizes for what seemed like for hours.He had an ever-present frown on his face that deepened during times of _innocent_ remembrance of his dear friend Cordelia.

He'd been researching for quite some time and regretfully he hated what he was about to say,"But I've reached an end here."Wesley braces himself on what the Hyperion remembered was simply called the main lobby desk, that long torturous thing."I've researched every book . . . thoroughly . . . that deals with inter-dimensional travel and it's just not . . . feasible."

Angel grimaces slightly. "Don't say that . . ."

"Well, it's the truth Angel.We have some very difficult and possibly compromising decisions to make in the few minutes time we have and . . ." Wesley wavers just a bit, "and I do mean life threatening not just for Cordelia . . . but for all of us."

"Look Wesley, we . . . every time we go out that door . . ." The Hyperion perks up at those words as Angel stands and tries to find the right words, "We_ take _a chance.We _risk_ our lives everyday for one reason: to help those people that need help.Except this time this is Cordelia that needs us, Wesley."Angel sighs and then says, "There just simply has to be a way" and tries to believe the words that came from his mouth.

_Don't believe the foreboding truth behind Wesley's words._

"Angel's right" says Gunn, his voice echoing a bit in the Hyperion.Hyperion: Wow, nice vibration there."Look, this is Cordy we are talking about here Wesley and I know you aren't going to give up on her that easily."

"Gunn, I didn't say . . ."

"No, you didn't have to.Do I have to say this again?This is Cordelia . . ." Gunn starts to get a little deeper in thought but suddenly looks down at the ground sweetly imagining Cordelia, "the sweet, sympathetic, gracious, humble . . ." Gunn laughes to himself.

Wes and Angel look at Gunn with a bit of confusion in their eyes.

"Um, Gunn, we _remember_ Cordelia."

Wes and Angel look at Gunn with slight amusement.Their brains finally "click" as understanding occurs between them.

"Yeah, of course, you do" Gunn smiles some more before going back into worry mode.

"And we will.We'll get her back Gunn," Angel says with a warm smile and then walks around a bit."We just have to find a way."Angel sits down."Wes, I still don't understand why we can't just enter the same portal that sucked Cordelia through or any portal really to this dimension Cordelia ended up at.There has to be plenty of portals around LA."

"Well, we could possibly take any portal, but there's a very high chance we won't be able to find a corresponding portal that leads _exactly_ back to this dimension.Each portal leads to a specific world or dimension like the one you recalled in the art museum does to Jheira's world.You can't just use one to take you to any destination."

So Gunn says, "So what you are saying is basically we may end up lost in any number of dimensional lands out there that exist?"

Wesley answers, "Exactly, in accordance our problem isn't arriving in the right world Cordelia ended up at.Like Angel said earlier we could just perform a ritual (if we could find one) that would allow us to enter said world through the exact same portal that sucked her through but . . . even though we may have a chance at saving Cordelia, afterwards we may end up wandering the inter-dimensional worlds forever or . . . at least until we tire out and die.

Angel sees a loophole here, "But even by your own admission Wesley, can't we just make sure we remember which portal we come through in this world Cordelia is and just return via that portal?"

"That's the other issue, Angel.Every world has different laws of _everything_ and are therefore situated and made differently from our world, meaning that the portal we use to get there may be one literally in a different position."

"Like out of the sky?" says Gunn.

Wes nods "Or may even lead us back to LA but to a different period of time.You see?Situations and time move differently in these other worlds.There are many elements to consider in this equation of saving Cordelia.This is the situation we are facing and I'm . . ." Wesley takes a deep breath and looks down into a book.But then a little later looks confidently up into their eyes, "more than ready to find Cordelia, but I want her to come back to what she remembers: our world in this time."

The gang has a mutual silence.

Wesley tries to begin again.

"As of now we know that the portal to the karaoke bar leads to wherever Cordelia traveled to.So at least we know that much.The problem like I said before is getting there but also we have to keep in mind that we are arriving in a world very different from ours and must be as inconspicuous as possible so as to not call attention to ourselves."

"Incognito style . . .," Gunn says.

"Exactly," says Wes.

Wesley's right."You're right, Wesley" says Angel.

Angel goes back within.Thinking hard.Tries to think of alternatives, ways to get to the other dimension and then . . . 

_What's this?_

Something comes to him.

Wesley continues, "if we can find a way to get there"

_Darla . . ._

"that also allows us to return safely"

_Oh no, how could I have forgotten about that . . . the ring._

"then that would be" 

_she must have it_

"the best route for everyone"

_is she still here?_

"especially Cordelia."

_I have to find her . . . Darla, but how?_Angel sighs.

_Hyperion: Oh where to begin, huh lone vampire, especially with her?You have a long way to go._

_ _

_What. . . who said that?_

"Angel, man?" says Gunn.

_I swear I must be losing it._

"Angel?" more strongly.

"Hm?" Angel looks up out of his trance.

"What are you thinking about?Or do you have any new and bright ideas? Looks like you were lost there for a second unless you might have a plan to get us out of a less than messy situation here."Gunn looks at Wesley.

Angel thinks on that for a minute and surprises them both, "Yeah, I think so.I think I've got one."And immediately after Angel thinks to himself, _"Would she still have it?But more importantly would it still work and for all of us?Should I take that chance?It could lead to no where . . . like everything else plus . . ."_

_I already told her the next time I saw her, I'd kill her on sight._

_Just great . . ._

"Uh, hmm, earth to Angel," says Gunn.

_Hyperion: Angel, you have an audience._

_I'll save that last thought for later which is right around the corner._

_ _

_Who said that?_

Angel runs his hands through his hair and looks up . . . point blank at both Wes and Gunn.Yeah, he could see it alright.They were _depending_ on him for the next call of action . . . to save their dear friend.

_Yeah, I'm going to have to take that chance._

Angel stands.

"I think I know how or at least have an idea, nothing definite.I have to go and see if it's even possible but I'll be right back as soon as I can."

Wesley stays silent waiting for some hint as to Angel's direction in all of this.

"But where are you going?" says Gunn.

Angel sighs, "To see an old past-time.Just don't stake when I return, okay?"

_Enough with the déjà vu._

Both Gunn and Wes's brains do that "clicking" thing, finally registering Angel's intentions while Angel departs like he has on so many other missions.

The sound of the cellar door closing shut brings their entire situation along with every possible risk home.

And silently the Hyperion waits along with them for his . . . no, correction . . .

_their_ return.

_part 1_

_part 2_

_part 3_


End file.
